Let the rants begin. Taylor Twellman gets us off to a good start with an epic rant of his own: WATCH: Twellman sounds off after U.S. exit ESPN FC 10/10/2017
The USMNT are the New England Revolution of international soccer. Omar Gonzalez is the new Mike Burns - the Revs should hire him to replace Burns.
Based on what I've read, Gulati is sounding too complacent. He needs to go. Maybe Garber as his replacement?
Speaking of complacent, did you see Arena's post-game news conference? The man can come off a smug even after he just got his a$$ handed to him. Other thoughts cross-posted from the nats thread: Does it bother anyone else as much as it does me that MLS seems to have helped much of the rest of Concacaf more than it's helped US player development? Agree with the sentiment in previous posts that Sunil and Bruce need to go (how can he still be smug in his post-game press conference?). Keep Cameron, Wood and Pulisic and everyone elses job is up for grabs.
TT - "Every single person should look themselves in the mirror..." Max - "The criticism comes, and they repel the criticism". TT - "You and I have talked about this off camera. Well guess what? I see that little red light. It's on and I'm going to bring it up right now. The gloves should have been off years ago. We should have been having real criticism..." IMHO, this could be a discussion about the Revs. TT seems to think that some/many people who could have made a difference have been sitting around watching the USMNT program drift to failure without speaking up, calling people out, and demanding change. I wonder if there is anybody who could make a difference in Foxboro who has just been sitting around watching the Revs drift to failure the same way?
I understand the thinking, but doesn't stronger competition in Concacaf make the US better in the long run?
Not in the least. MLS should be the CONCACAF SuperLeague, with internationals of many of the better teams in the region plying their trade here. It is irrelevant to think that because Panama, Honduras and Costa Rica have MLS players, that would be enough to make the US the fifth-best team in the region. And Bruce Arena, is there really any other personality he can be than a smug, self-righteous prick, even when he choked to a Revs-level of ineptitude? We would have been better off keeping Klinsmann at that point. I guess the only silver lining is that Arena will never, ever get near the National Team again. Hopefully his reputation will be tarnished enough that no club would ever take him for another gig. Ans Sunil Gulati should be out on his ass as well, teaching the virtues of voodoo economics at some college in Harlem.
My quick thoughts on this sentiment are the following. MLS does not develop CONCACAF players. Those players come to MLS from places where soccer is the top dog by a mile with tons of skill, good first touches, expert gamesmanship, intensely competitive attitudes, hungry, passionate, high soccer IQs, tactical knowledge, etc MLS gives them proper, professional environments and a chance to play their US rivals more often. The result is that they become better pros, possibly have a higher level of fitness, possibly get familiar with US players and US training attitudes, and are no longer intimidated by US players or venues. In a different way, MLS does not develop US players as often as it helps them become serviceable pros. Those players come to MLS with a wide range of skills, first touches, soccer IQs, tactical knowledge, etc. In some ways, MLS seems like a natural progression of the status quo for US youth soccer players. If the status quo, which is not exactly a cauldron of intense competition, did not result in them having a good first touch as a youth player (or college player) or understanding tactics, then they probably will not develop such things while receiving limited playing time in MLS when the other players on the team already have these skills. Hopefully MLS academies, USL teams, and improved college soccer will address some of this over time.
That's a great point. I wrote the above post when I was bullsh!t about the way the US lost (and had just watched TNT's rant) and I totally wasn't ready to see any plusses.
So ESPN has run the US failure to qualify as the lead story on every one of their shows (both SportsCenter) and their editorial shows. Where was the story and how was it covered in the paper edition of the Boston Globe? It was a single, small article on the second page of the sports section. Talk about a dichotomy, the "Nationwide leader in Sports" and the "Boston leader in Dinosaur Sports Journalism."
A few thoughts: - The U.S. played like a team full of disaffected rich kids. - Twellman's right that we've just weathered a terrible generation of players with this 25-30 cohort. The next one almost can't help but be an improvement. - Arena's a jackhole. Insisting major changes needed to be made to the team if it qualified means you should have made them already. - Maybe it's time the U.S. figured out how to play with the ball at their feet. - MLS, even if it grows to 32 teams, will have a tiny footprint geographically speaking. You need hundreds of smaller clubs to pick up that developmental slack and it's probably going to take some sort of pro-rel, at least at the lower levels, to convince people to make the investments that creates those clubs. - The strongest national teams have domestic leagues led by alpha clubs. Those are the organizations developing the superstars who can win a World Cup. A parity league comes with a cost at the international level. - It's time for Sunil Gulati to shuffle off the stage.
Unfortunately, I'm more worried about this going the other way. Sunil and the Krafts go way back. I'm sure Kraft Jr can see the value of bringing over the USSF leadership team to solve all our woes -- Sunil can find useless players cheap and Bruce can be sure that they have orange slices at every match while he assures the local media and Garber that everything is fine.
Is it wrong to point out at Bruce Arena is the most successful coach in the history of US men's soccer?
No, but he's failed to progress with the international game. His tricks don't work anymore at that level.
- ESPN may secretly be enjoying this a bit as FOX outbid them for the next 2 World Cups. - How does this affect future MLS attendance / ratings? - How does this affect MLS schedule next year, during the Cup? - How does this affect CONCACAF bid to host 2026?
Some random thoughts based on the US not qualifying: About every two years, there is discussion about why the Gold Cup is played every two years. One of the responses is that is gives smaller countries meaningful games more often than if the tournament was only played once every four years. The USMNT is getting a small taste of that now. I wonder what the WCQ process will be like for the 2022 cycle. Does anybody know when that will be set? Not that I care about the exact number, but not playing in the WC will negatively impact our FIFA ranking. I really could care less about our ranking, but for this WC the ranking is playing a role in what pot a country gets placed in for determining groups. If that will be the case going forward, then the rankings really need to be revised. College soccer needs to become a professional environment in the same way that college basketball and college football are professional environments. The college soccer season needs to span both semesters similar to college basketball and hockey. This will address the footprint of high level soccer and shift the development costs and risk away from MLS. Is college soccer ready for this today? No, but IMHO this needs to be done. I have often heard that in the 18-22 age range kids need to be playing in a professional environment. This is the easiest way to get there and do so on the largest scale. You just need to fix a few things to make college the best place for the 18-22 year olds to develop and most of those issues/fixes exists whether or not you think college is the right place to do it. The fish are already jumping into this boat so you will not have to change the mindset of parents/players, just change a few things about how the NCAA runs the show. If you can convince the NCAA that there is football sized money to be made with soccer sized budgets, then I am sure they will get on board. Imagine the "Big House" in Michigan packed with 100,000 people to watch the Michigan - Ohio State men's soccer game? There is no reason in the world that this cannot happen in the future. Is the college route the best route for every player? No, there will always be players who are more talented and pro ready/pros before being 18, but it could be a better route than it is today. And if this can be accomplished, a side effect will be that this will trickle down to high school and club levels. The number of high school/club level programs of top quality will increase.
Y'know, when Sunil first joined the Revs after his role as the #2 man in the league, I thought he would help us find decent players within our budget. After all, that's what he did for the whole league in the early years. But no, our foreign player acquisition during his time here was even worse than it is now, which is really a remarkable statement. We don't get national team games anymore, with the closest venue being the grass field in Hartford. Sunil has done absolutely nothing when he was associated with us last time, and I expect he'd do even less now. As for Arena, sure he may be successful, and it wouldn't surprise me if Burns gave him a call and chatted a bit, just to say he has spoken with a coach with great pedigree and credentials. But despite Arena being a first-rate prick, he is at least smart enough to take a gig where he will get at least decent resources and commitment from the ownership to let him do his thing. There are about 20 other MLS clubs who would rank higher than us in those categories, so us Arena-haters won't have anything to worry about. I just hope they don't wait too long and someone else hires Savarese, leaving us with another unproven ex-player like Jay Heaps. Not to put too much stock in Gio, but given the total cheap-assedness of the Krafts, he might be the best we can get. They won't pay some "name" manager from Europe or South America a million bucks and make him sign "marquee" players for $230,000 a year.
- There won't be as big of a post-World Cup bump as usual, but I heard a compelling argument on a Ringer podcast that people under age 30 already are soccer consumers. That market's there and growing. - The MLS schedule should be the same as it was going to be if the U.S. had qualified. There's plenty of Mexican, Costa Rican, Panamanian and Honduran players in the league. The question has always been whether the league actually can benefit by piggybacking on the World Cup schedule. I don't know the answer to that. - This shouldn't affect the bid at all. On the BS front page Dan Loney is fear mongering that getting rid of Sunil Gulati could jeopardize the bid. Though he could resign as USSF president and simply serve as the head of the bid committee if he's somehow essential to that. I'm getting the feeling lately that Loney's column's ought to come with a SUM logo since they seem to be his sponsor - but I digress. If anything, this ought to make FIFA want to fatten up its American cash cow.
Is that enough? If it is, great. but if what you really need is a nine-month season for the 18-22 cohort, then perhaps the message to players is that they'll need to choose between free college and a chance to thrive in the pros. It's definitely easier if colleges can do the developmental work, since thousands of them are already in place. I'm just thinking it might need to be a full September-May schedule.
I suspect all of that is 100% correct. However, if Arena shows up, that probably means Kraft has agreed to devote some resources to the team. In fact, I have a hard time seeing Arena show up in any way other than a direct deal with Kraft which gives him total control and sends Burns packing. Arena would be looking for the full Belichick. Then we'd have to grapple with it being the sort of sweeping change we want, but maybe the wrong guy to trust.
I'm sorry to disagree, but, college soccer has virtually zero impact on the US Nats. If a player close to good enough talent-wise to be in the pool, he is really unlikely to go to college, but rather to an academy program or more likely directly to a club (here or abroad). You'll never see your sell out in Ann Arbor, since there's no requirement that you have to go to college to play professional soccer (which there de facto is to play in the NFL). The issue is much more about the more formative years for soccer talent -- in my mind up to about 14 or 16. Focusing on kids learning ball skills and tactics (without having creativity taken out of their games). This is the basic thrust of the "fun drills" and small sided games that are the core of most youth soccer programs today. Unfortunately, the average American youth soccer coach doesn't have the tools to make this work (lots do, and there're great resources for coaches who want to learn).
I disagree with this. The issue is not who MLS helps but who boneheads like Arena and Klisnmann pick from MLS. When you dress people like Wondo, Beasley, Zusi, Dax, Acosta, Zardes, and Capt backpass while sending Juan A home and never giving Lee a shot but starting "cant score on empty net" Nagbe. Its no wonder we were sent packing. Rowe and Dwyer looked good in their one shot, they go sent home after the group stage while clowns like Zardes and Jozy Antiscore went forward. My point is there are better US players in MLS then the ones being selected but they arent getting a chance thus we look bad using the ones Arena liked. You are right...both Arena and Sunil must go and soon. Fire Arena immediately, run somebody against Sunil when his election comes up in Feb but we need a clean start after this disaster.